Monday, May 31, 2010

Well OK, it's ALMOST June... but I figure that I better get this posted while I have the time! :) Are you ready for a new sketch contest here at AllyScraps? I am! I love Debbie's sketches, and use them SO often when I'm scrapping. This is Debbie's last sketch this month, BUT... we've asked Debbie to send us more sketches, and guess what? she said YES! So, for all of you that love Debbie's sketches too, we'll be posting 2 every single month. Big smiles.

Here is Debbie's June contest sketch. I love how she used all the horizontal photos, I have so many of those.

We're extra lucky, because Debbie also made a sample page for us! It's SO cute.

Here are the sketch contest rules, there aren't too many. Make a layout using Debbie's sketch as inspiration. You can flip it, turn it, mirror image it... just use the sketch to start your layout. Finish your project and e-mail the image to us by Wednesday, June 16th at midnight Eastern time and we will choose a winner soon after. Send it to allyscraps@gmail.com Cathy has an awesome prize this month for the winner. A BIG prize pack of BoBunny papers, so new that they aren't even in the store yet. Papers from the Block Party line... and YES, these papers as well as 2 other new lines will be here soon.

1. Paint scalloped banners with off-white acrylic paint, let dry, and sand to distress. 2. Cover each of the triangle banners with coordinating paper of your choice and adhere to the scalloped banner base. 3. Machine stitch around edges of some if desired. 4. Tie each banner together in desired order using ribbon, button twine, or scrunched seam binding. Tie bows on the ends in order to create hangers. 5. Embellish with painted chipboard wings covered in mica flakes, painted scrolls covered in glitter, rubons, buttons, trims, flowers, rhinestones, and gems. 6. Hang chandelier drops from the bottom of a few banners and insert trinket pins up through the bottom point of some of the other banners. 7. Hang this somewhere special where you will be able to admire your work and enjoy.

Hey, just wanted to let you know a little secret... Melissa Phillips has agreed to stick around here at AllyScraps. We are SO lucky that she will be designing for us EVERY month. Hurray! Also, keep an eye out for a new sketch contest on June 1st. Debbie Gaydos just sent my the sketch, and WOW, it's awesome. June also holds 2 special guest designers on the blog... one you've known for a while and one that is brand new to AllyScraps. More news to share soon. Have a great day!

Monday, May 24, 2010

How cute is Dana's "About a Girl" page in the last post??! Like her, I love all the new Fancy Pants lines, especially My Family, which was just perfect for this page that I did, based on my sketch from earlier this month:

I read the title/quote on a fortune cookie that I got in a restaurant at least a year ago. I saved the fortune and had it tucked away in a drawer on an organizer that sits on my scrap table, knowing that I wanted to use it on a page. When I saw this photo that my husband took on Mother's Day, I knew it was perfect!

I hand-cut the block from the Strips paper to go behind the title work. I love the embellishment cluster at the bottom corner, created using several pieces form the Element stickers. I also used some of the coordinating brads. The title is die-cut on my Pazzles machine, and the "&" is a Nutmeg Thickers.

I hope you are inspired to play with some of this collection, or check out some of the other fun new Fancy Pants lines in the store! Thanks for letting me share!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Love those! This layout took me no time at all, but I love the bright colors!

I used papers from the About a Girl line by Fancy Pants. I love the paper called Mia and Brooklyn, (I also used the back of Brooklyn), the strip sheet is SUPER cute too. You really need some new Fancy Pants... I got a little of every one of the new lines.

I sewed a quickie border, added a fun title (those are the best little letters EVER by Sassafras Lass), pasted on some bling... and I was done. Love that!

A quickie layout, and a quickie blog post too. See you soon with LOTS more inspiration, Dana

Oh and PS, scroll down to see Melissa Phillips' awesome art journal. :)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

In Melissa's words... "I’ve wanted to create an Art Journal for myself for quite sometime. You’ll notice that this is a work in progress, as it should be. I look forward to tucking in bits of fabric, patterned paper, color swatches, ads, quotes, and other inspiring items. By mixing in pockets and tags I have given myself areas where items can be held snug and the capacity to hold more has increased. It will certainly be a treasure to keep and look back on as time goes by."

Simple Instructions:

1. From Patchwork Paper, punch out 9 squares to cover front of album. Ink edges, adhere, and stitch in place to create a quilted look. Bend up edges to add more dimension. 2. Wrap small envelope with scrunched seam binding, apply rubon, and adhere on a diagonal to cover. Embellish with flowers cut from an old sewing pattern and buttons. 3. Adhere bird sticker, label, and alphabet stickers and apply rubon across the bottom. 4. Cover the inside of the album with coordinating paper, vintage trim, chipboard letters, rubons, button, and rhinestones. 5. Embellish pocket and tag with paper, trim, die cut, and rubons. Use this to keep vintage ephemera and other favorite pieces. 6. Create a place to hold a notebook so you can jot down ideas wherever you go by creating a pocket from patterned paper, trim, and buttons. Place notepad, sewing pattern and other favorite inside the pocket to inspire you and keep your ideas close at hand.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Wow, we received quite a few wonderful entries for our May sketch challenge. We are happy to announce that our winner this month is Tami Dugan. Big congrats to you Tami. We loved your take on the sketch, especially the cute tickets and awesome picture. Here is Tami's layout.

We'll be having another sketch challenge on June 1st, hope that you all will participate. Also, please be sure to check the blog tomorrow, I have another truly wonderful project to post from Melissa Phillips. Have a great day.

This line is just GORGEOUS! And so versatile - I might not have thought that a line called "flower child" would be the best choice for a boy page, lol, but with the double-sided sheets and great variety of patterns, it was perfect! I love the bold colors and patterns.

I gave my craft knife a workout, cutting the pattern from flower child for the cool border effect, and layered a scrap of red from the back side underneath for the great contrast. The Psychedelic Die Cut provides most of my background, but I cut the right edge off to add the border and journaling elements. I punched the scalloped circle layered under the subtitle from the Cut Outs sheet, and also created the "dreamer" tag from another piece of the same sheet. I also used Nutmeg Thickers in white, but dressed them up a bit by stamping some lines on them using the fun little Maya Road Just a Note stamp. I stamped the "perfect moment" caption in the circle of the paper pattern using some Post-it notes to "mask" the edge of the circle. I love the effect!

I hope you enjoy the sketch! You can always make it your own - if you don't like to hand-cut paper, or don't have any paper that has a similar pattern, you can always add a similar border effect with a punch, chipboard scrolls, rub-ons, stamps, or something else! I would love to see all kinds of variations on this sketch!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Oh, how I long for the sweet days of summer. We had SNOW on Mother's Day... yep, snow. Now we have rain and cold. But I know that those summer days will be here soon, and I can't wait!

This is a layout I did about our trip to a local state park, and the beautiful walk we had there. It was lovely.

Just about everything I used on this page is October Afternoon. Their products gave me everything I needed to put together this whole project, from paper to journaling tags to title stickers and embellishments. Love that! I used the Fly a Kite collection, including papers, journaling cards, shape stickers (got the title here), word stickers, and mini market stickers. I especially loved this paper, I cut out the circles and made a fun border for my page.

I was thinking, like Debbie's last sketch, that both sides of this layout could stand on their own. A double design.

Speaking of sketches... Debbie's got a new one coming on Friday AND don't forget our May sketch contest. Here is all of the information, the due date is coming up quick. Hope you're working on your page.

Monday, May 10, 2010

We are so excited to have Melissa Phillip's as one of our guest designers here at AllyScraps during the month of May. A big welcome to you Melissa.

Hi, my name is Melissa Phillips. I live with my husband and little girl in Southern Nevada. Looking back, I think I have always had a love for paper, glitter, and glue….it’s fascinated me since I was little, but I didn’t give myself the time needed to explore this hobby until I graduated from Brigham Young University with my bachelor’s degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. It seemed that at that time, my ducks were in a row and I was ready to do something for myself and so I started making Thank You notes to send out after my little girl arrived. I was enchanted….and my love for paper-crafting has continued to grow.

My work has been published in Scrapbook Trends, CARDS magazine, Paper Trends, Simply Handmade, Artful Blogging, Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbooks Etc., Paper Crafts magazine, and Dutch Cards magazine. I have also had the privilege of contributing my layouts, cards, and altered items to a few books as well.

Sharing my love of card-making and paper-crafting with others is one of my most favorite things to do….getting others excited about creating what their heart desires and enjoying the process as they go along is the most rewarding part of this journey for me.

Melissa has made a wedding memorabilia booklet for us this week. It is SO soft and beautiful.... just perfect for a gift for the bride.

Here are some notes and instructions from Melissa.

This little wedding booklet was made specifically to give the bride a very special place to record her thoughts about her special occasion. I included mini coffee stained envelopes to hold her notes, letters, ephemera, etc.. Also on the back of each chipboard coaster a spot has been saved to adhere a picture about her engagement, the ring, the bridal bouquet, her groom, wedding party, etc.

Paint the front and back of each chipboard coaster using off-white acrylic paint. Let the dry, sand the edges to distress and then machine stitch around the edges. For the top chipboard piece, apply a dusting of glitter after painting, distressing, and stitching. For each page front and back, cut a block of coordinating paper to fit just inside the stitching. Ink to distress and adhere. Tie chipboard coasters together with envelopes mixed in using ribbon. Use die cut tags, Artisan Swirls, buttons, adhesive pearls, rubons, ribbons, and trim to embellish each page and envelope depending on what you’d like the topic of each page to be.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Hey all, I'm so happy to be with you this month for some SKETCH fun! Have you tackled the May 1 Sketch Challenge yet? You still have a few days to get your entry in for that great prize!

Today I have a 2-page sketch for you that I hope you'll love. This can easily be converted to either a left-side or right-side one-pager too, if that's what you prefer! Hence, you are getting three sketches in one! Cool, huh?

Here is the sketch (click image to enlarge!):

I love to use oversized pictures like that 5x10 once in a while, but you don't, you can easily swap it out for 3 photos approximately 5"x3.5" each! And if you are more of a single page kind of scrapper, just pick either side - both the left or right sides could stand alone! For example, if you use just the left side, you could put a journaling block in place of the smaller photo, and move the title work over to where the tag-embellishment cluster is shown.

I just love this new Bella, and it was perfect for these photos of my oldest's First Holy Communion from last year. I've been waiting for just the right paper to inspire me to get these scrapped! I made use of lots of the bits from Bits of Bella, and mounted the "enjoy the journey" caption onto a few layers of cardstock for added dimension. The sentiment picks up on my discussion of his "journey of faith" in the journaling, so I thought it was really appropriate. I also love the variety in the Alpha Bits! The teeny little letter circles are so cute, and I used them along with the scalloped edge sticker - which I cut apart - for part of my title work. And check out how I used part of the Billboards to create the border-punched embellishment on the upper-right.

I hope you enjoy, and are inspired! Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

I often get stuck for a small gift for female friends. Notecards are always handy when you want to send a thank you or 'thinking of you' kind of note. I put the Devonshire collection to good use this week to create a note card set which will come in handy even after you have sent all the cards.

I covered an old cigar box with the fabulous Victorian Rose paper. The lid is covered with two layers (Guinevere, Clarabel), one is stuck firmly, whilst the second is peeled and distressed. I really wanted something ancient!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Hope you're scrapping, I will be! :) Hey, we're excited to announce that we're having another sketch contest here at AllyScraps. Debbie Gaydos, our favorite sketch designer is back for May, and she's made an awesome single photo sketch for us this month. Here it is!

Of course, I got to play with the sketch already... and here is my take on Debbie's sketch. I managed to get 2 photos onto my page, and still keep the same feel.

I used the super cute Feeling Groovy line by Doodlebug. This line is one of my favorites, ever! I especially love their new die cut sheets. The stickers are fun too. I had fun using lots of COLOR, even in my journaling.

Oh wow, I forgot to tell you about the great prize for the sketch contest. OCTOBER AFTERNOON! Yeah, love this kit. The winner is going to be SO happy. So, here are the rules. Make a layout using Debbie's sketch as inspiration. You can flip it, turn it, mirror image it, just use the sketch to start your layout. Finish your project and e-mail the image to us by Sunday, May 16th at midnight Eastern time and we will choose a winner soon after. Send it to allyscraps@gmail.com Have fun and good luck!